


Dear Annie

by IWouldNameMyPetsAfterYou



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Advice Column, Cute, F/F, Fluff, Holtzbert - Freeform, Kissing, Sexy, newspaper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 14:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8016988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IWouldNameMyPetsAfterYou/pseuds/IWouldNameMyPetsAfterYou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erin is frustrated by how much she likes Holtzmann and turns to a local advice columnist for help. Will she get an answer she likes?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Annie

Dear Annie,  
I am a physicist at a well-known research facility and I have always been heavily focused on my work. I always thought I was straight, but I never had any close relationships with anyone. There was never a guy who really made me feel the way everyone says love is supposed to make you feel. I mean, I’m attracted to some guys, but I just never was satisfied being with one.

Anyway, I put aside guys for a long time to focus on my research, but now there is someone at my work - a woman, actually - who I just can’t stop thinking about. She is funny, interesting, and an absolute genius. She’s always very obviously flirting with me, and I’m pretty sure she’s lesbian.

The only problem is that she flirts with every woman she meets. She’s outgoing and energetic and she’s a completely charismatic person. Girls flock to her, and I don’t know how to interpret her flirting because she acts that way towards everyone. 

Also, I’m worried that she won’t want to date me because I work with her. I don’t even think she knows that I now identify myself as bi. I’m at my wits end. I can’t get her out of my head. Please help me figure out what to do!

Confused in New York

 

Erin pressed send a moment before Holtzmann strutted into the room, carrying several huge sacks of metal parts.

“Boo yah,” she crowed, dumping her bags out unceremoniously onto the table. “Got a great haul today.” She shimmied over to where Erin sat hunched over her laptop, quickly exiting out of page after page of advice columns and pulling up an article on particle decay in Class I vapors. “Whatcha lookin’ at?” She pulled Erin’s computer out from her protective grasp and bit her tongue, her brow furrowing in deep thought as she scrolled through the article. “Why so protective?” Holtz ignored Erin’s arm, which was outstretched to take back her computer, instead placing it heavily on the coffee table. Holtzmann stretched her arms briefly over her head before slumping back onto the couch and sighing.

“Long day?” Erin said casually. She tried to appear cool and collected, but as she spoke Holtz extended her arm and began petting Erin’s hair. Erin swallowed, trying not to move. She didn’t want Holtz to stop.

“Yuppers,” Holtz replied, crossing her legs so that Erin could see her clearly untied combat boots with the laces all muddy and fraying. “I picked up a bunch of stuff for the heat conductors and I went scrounging around for parts to build the classification computer and -”

“Huh?” Erin said. “Classification computer?”

“It’ll give an immediate analysis of the malevolence level and class of any entities in the area. Kinda like a scanner tool type thing.”

“Sounds fancy.” Erin promptly forgot about the computer, though, because Holtz’s hand in her hair just felt so good. She closed her eyes, reveling in the attention. She never wanted it to stop.

Suddenly, Erin felt light pat on her head and a weight lift off the couch. She opened her eyes, disappointed.

“Gotta go,” Holtzmann said. “Got some business to attend to.”

“What kind of business?” Erin wasn’t surprised. While Holtzmann usually stayed at the firehouse later than any of the other Ghostbusters, and often stayed the night, she disappeared most days in the afternoon and early evening. While the others had always assumed that she was just up to her normal rummaging for parts and doing research, Holtz’s newest finds made Erin wonder why she wasn’t running upstairs to work with them right away. She began wondering what Holtzmann actually did in the evenings, and why she never invited any of the others to go along.

“Oh, ya know. The researching kind,” Holtz said, taking her tan trench coat from the makeshift hook by the door, which no one else ever used (it glowed green and Erin assumed it was probably radioactive). She flung it over her arms, and before Erin could think twice, Holtzmann opened the door, leaned halfway out of it, and looked back at Erin. She flung one arm in the air, pointing her index finger toward the sky, and shouted, “to adventure!” She launched herself off the front stoop, leaving the door ajar. Erin heard the engine of the Ecto 1 rev and loud dance music pouring out the windows as Holtzmann sped off.

Erin rose from the couch, cracking her aching shoulders as she stood (the physicist had spent far too much of the day poring over books for her own good), and pursed her lips as she walked over to the door and shut it. The air outside had started to cool down for the impending autumn, and Erin breathed in a big lungful before turning back to her books and realizing that Jillian had left her research materials and thumbdrives behind. They spilled out of one of the bags on the kitchen table, along with several sketch-filled notebooks and Holtz’s favorite well-chewed pen.

“That’s odd,” Erin muttered to herself, fingering the smooth edge of a well-thumbed notebook. Holtzmann never left her work behind, especially when she went to the library. She needed her sketches with her at all times - she even stopped in the middle of ghost hunts when she had had a particularly brilliant idea to scribble her thoughts down before taking out her proton guns again. Erin figured Holtz was just tired. She had just forgotten. And Erin didn’t want Holtz to reach the library and have to come all the way back for her things. 

That’s when she got her brilliant idea. She was going to bring Holtzmann’s things to her, along with coffee, and maybe pringles…

That would surely get the ball rolling in her direction. Maybe Holtz would even invite Erin to stay, maybe have drinks afterwards… It was Friday, after all...

Erin was out the door with an armful of Holtz’s things before she could think twice.

 

When Erin’s taxi got to the library, she was twenty dollars poorer and a million times more nervous. She carefully balanced the sketchbooks between her head and shoulder as she lifted the hot drinks and the cans of chips from the leather seat. She thanked the cab driver as he counted her cash and then shut the door with her hip. She staggered awkwardly under the weight of the books, but finally made it to a table in the nonfiction section and looked around pointedly for Holtz.

She wasn’t there.

She wasn’t at her normal table, which the Ghostbusters had adopted because it was big enough to fit all of them.

She wasn’t lounging in one of the armchairs by the windows.

She wasn’t in the computer lab.

In short, she wasn’t there.

Erin sighed and let her head fall to the tabletop. She felt a tiny bit of wetness at the corner of her eye, disappointed that she had believed Holtzmann’s lie and that she had come all the way here, had gotten her hopes up so much, only to be let down by a woman who didn’t even know she was falling in love with her.

 

Erin drank both of the coffees and ate all the pringles, then went to the romance section and grabbed a silly novel about a girl moving to a tiny town in the country and meeting a handsome, attractive man…

See, Erin? That’s what you need. The perfect guy to protect you and to be all mysterious and try to woo you and… and… blonde hair… charming smile… gorgeous curves… hilarious… dangerous…

It didn’t take Erin long to realize she was thinking about Holtzmann again. She didn’t want a man. She didn’t want anyone to sweep her off her feet. She was already on the floor, and it was because of Holtz.

She put the book back and went to the liquor store.

 

When Erin woke up the next afternoon, it was only because of her phone notifying her that she had an email. She groaned dramatically and reached for the glass of water her drunk self had thoughtfully placed there. Her head hurt.

She rolled over and stretched out her arm for her phone. She blinked several times; the light from the screen was hurting her eyes. 

Erin shook her head, flung her phone on the bed, and went off to take a shower.

 

On Monday, Holtzmann was already hard at work by the time Erin arrived. Sawdust sprinkled from the ceiling as the heavy footfalls on the second floor synced with the tune of the blaring music. It was 80’s music again. Perfect. That was just what Erin needed - a gorgeous woman dancing to DeBarge. Instead of doing her usual check-in with Holtzmann, as she did every morning, she made herself a cup of coffee and settled herself in at the table with her research. She wanted Jillian to come to her. She wanted an apology.

Jillian did come to her, only five minutes later. But instead of saying she was sorry for lying, she immediately launched into playful banter.

“Good morning, ghost girl,” she smiled, dragging a large rolling machine behind her that could only be described as a very odd-looking IV. “I see you’ve made coffee.”

“You’re looking awfully chipper this morning,” Erin said, looking away in anger even as her heart began to pound. She wanted to be angry, but Holtzmann just made it so freaking hard. She wished Jillian would just take charge of her, call her pet names and do things to her that just made her toes curl and her jaw clench -

“Well, I get to work with you. Of course I’m doing well; you keep the whole group together, little Erin.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“But you’re so small and cute and perfect!” Holtz ruffled Erin’s hair, then winked as she thundered up the stairs, spilling splotches of hot coffee onto the wooden stairs from her overflowing mug. Erin watched her go and admired the back of her in her jumpsuit. With Holtz, it was simply impossible to stay mad.

 

That afternoon, when Holtz declared she was going out again, Erin was prepared. She stood by the door, and when Holtz flew by in a whirlwind of hair and coat and overalls, Erin pushed her fist back against Holtzmann’s collarbone and admonished her.

“Whoa, there! Where do you think you’re going?”

Holtz seemed very surprised by the amount of strength in Erin’s tiny arm, because she halted, her eyebrows wiggling in a comedic fashion. “What’s that, ghost girl?”

“You weren’t at the library on Friday.”

“What makes you think that?”  
“Because you weren’t. You left all your stuff behind, so I went to bring it to you.”

Holtzmann bit her lip, her tongue grazing the tops of her front teeth in the embarrassment of being caught. Erin wondered what it might feel like to be on the receiving end of Holtzmann’s mouth moving like that. She shook the thought from her mind when Jillian spoke.

“What would you say if I took you where I actually went?”

“I would say you still owe me an apology.” Erin glared at Holtzmann, but her eyes softened when Holtz grabbed her hand and dragged her out the door, singing, “please forgive me, ghost girl Gilbert!” at the top of her lungs.

 

They were standing in the vestibule of a ridiculously boring office building, and Erin was getting annoyed.

“You don’t come to office buildings!”

“Ah, child. So little you know about me, the mysterious Holtzmaster,” Jillian crowed, leading Erin into a rather plain-looking room with about thirty-or-so cubicles lined up in rows. When Jillian brought her inside one of the tiny office spaces, Erin’s eyes widened at the sight of Holtzmann’s full name printed on a nametag by the door.

“Do you… do you have another job?” Erin looked at Jillian quizzically. She never would have thought Holtz would be one for a boring office job.

“Ah, that I do,” Holtzmann exclaimed. “Have a seat?” She gestured to a second, smaller chair before plopping herself down in the rolling desk one and turning on her computer.

“So what do you… do? Here?”

“I,” Holtzmann exclaimed proudly, “am an advice columnist.”

Erin processed that fact for a moment. “So… why, exactly?”

“Easy money.” Holtz shrugged. “Plus, I’m apparently really good at giving advice.” She winked, and Erin found her cheeks reddening. “So, I actually want to get some work done, but if you sit right there and be good, you can probably help me out.” She pulled open an internet tab and went to her work email, when Erin saw an email address that looked familiar and thought of something terrifying.

“What newspaper do you work for?”

“The Post Online. I go by the name, ‘Annie.’ S’ got a good ring to it, huh?” Holtzmann turned her chair in circles, clearly enjoying the perks her office job gave her.

Erin’s eyes were glazing over in horror, and she looked down at the floor, heart pounding rapidly, as Holtzmann clicked on the first email in her inbox. The fourth email down was the one with the familiar email address, so Erin had some time. She looked from side to side, trying to think of a way to get out of the office before Holtzmann recognized Erin’s email and found everything out. Her mind went blank.

 

By the time Holtz got to Erin’s letter, Erin was sweating profusely and a felt a bit sick. Fortunately, Holtz must not have registered the email address as Erin’s because she immediately read the very familiar letter out loud. Once she was done, she asked, “what’d’a say we advise, ghost girl? I think this lady should just tell the other girl how she feels.”

“Ummm…” Erin stalled. “I honestly don’t know.” And she didn’t. Why else would she have asked the question in the first place?

Jillian busily typed out a response and hit send, moving on to her next letter without incident, when Erin’s phone buzzed with the familiar sound of an email coming in. Holtzmann was buried deep in her work, so didn’t say anything when Erin pulled the device out of her pocket and began to read:

 

Dear Confused,

That does sound like a really difficult situation. I completely understand your problem with falling in love with a coworker, as I too have done it. What you need to keep in mind is that if you are really as good of friends as you say, I think you should communicate to her how you feel. If she doesn’t reciprocate, she’ll probably be flattered, especially if she is available and gay. And don’t worry about the whole flirting with everyone thing - some people have a charismatic charm that makes them incredibly popular with other people. Just be confident, be you, and above all, be honest.

Love,  
Annie

 

Erin was dumbfounded.

“Do you love me?” she blurted out in a high-pitched squeal. She rose on shaking legs, tears welling up in her eyes. “Did you know it was me?”

Holtzmann turned and adjusted her goggles. “Yes, my dear. You have so much to learn in the art of keeping cool.” She stood up. “C’mere, ghost girl.”

She wrapped her arms generously around Erin’s small frame and held her close, planting a kiss on the bridge between her neck and shoulder. “I’ve always been head over heels for you. Can’t believe it took you this long to figure it out.”

Erin sighed and buried her face deeply in Holtzmann’s shoulder. There was warmth emanating from her loving embrace and Erin felt incredibly at home in it.

Erin pulled away, despite the hug’s warmth. She locked eyes with Holtzmann, tears beginning to well over her lower eyelids and snake their way down her cheeks.

“I just couldn’t stop thinking about you,” she said, and Jillian’s hands wrapped around Erin’s shoulders and pulled her in for a kiss. Erin couldn’t decide where to put her hands at first, but they finally settled in Holtz’s hair and at the back of her neck. Her hair was tangled, and Erin’s fingers tightened in it as Holtz broke the kiss and leaned in, whispering “I couldn’t stop thinking about you, either. I wanna make you come undone. Pull at those tightly wound strings that make you Erin Gilbert.” She nipped at Erin’s ear.

Erin’s ear felt as if Holtzmann had attached wires to it and turned on a power generator. Her voice was electric, and Erin loved it. 

“Why didn’t you tell me right away when you read the letter?” Erin asked, breathlessly looking up at the ceiling as Holtzmann kissed her chin and neck.

“Because - “ Holtzmann paused and backed away from Erin abruptly, and a moment later, Erin saw why.

“Hello,” a man said brusquely, entering the office. “We’re going to need you at our meeting, Jillian. It started five minutes ago.”

His eyes narrowed as he looked Erin up and down suspiciously.

“Yes, sir. Be right there.”

He left the office. “I wanted you to see that you could tell me. I knew there was a brave side to little Erin Gilbert.” Holtzmann handed her a tissue. “To wipe all the lipstick off. Oh, and lemme fix your hair.” Suddenly Erin understood why the man in Jillian’s office had looked at her so strangely. Jillian brushed Erin’s hair neatly behind her head and combed through a couple of tangles with her fingers.

“Go back to my apartment. Make yourself comfortable, love. I’ll see you in a few hours. She winked, kissed Erin on the cheek, and left the cubicle. 

 

When Holtzmann finally got home, Erin had been flailing around for several hours with nothing to do. She had been so anxious that she leaped into Holtzmann’s arms the moment she walked in the door, wrapping her legs around Holtzmann’s torso.

“Whoa there, ghost girl!” She laughed. “Happy to see me, huh?”

“Very,” Erin said. 

Holtzmann smiled and pushed Erin back against the wall.

“Good, cause you’re in for the time of your life.” She leaned in and gave Erin a peck on the cheek, then put her down. Erin whimpered.

“Let me take you on a date first. An official one.” Holtzmann held out her hand and Erin smiled gratefully. “We’re going dancing. And then I’m going to pull you apart, miss Erin Gilbert. Holtzmann kissed the top of Erin’s head. “Only if that’s okay with you, of course.” She flashed Erin a wolfish grin.

“Nothing would make me happier.”

**Author's Note:**

> Would love to hear your feedback!


End file.
